


Ten Ways To Tell If Your Coworker's A Demon (You Won't Believe Number Three!)

by istie



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Demon Shane Madej, Gen, the holy water pistol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 18:44:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13933035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istie/pseuds/istie
Summary: Shane's been acting incredibly strange lately, so Ryan puts his detective mind to work.  He gets a little more than he bargained for.





	Ten Ways To Tell If Your Coworker's A Demon (You Won't Believe Number Three!)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cirilee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirilee/gifts).



> Fic fill of @Cirilee's comic, which you can find here: cirilee.tumblr.com/post/171537684987

Shane had been acting strange all week. Nothing ... _absurd,_ just ... _weird_. Up even later than usual, hadn't shaved at all (and hadn't mentioned wanting to grow the beard back), contacts in every day – and Ryan could _swear_ they weren't quite the right colour, why was he wearing coloured lenses – eating incredibly little but drinking way more coffee (and no, Ryan had checked, it wasn't for a video) ... Shane had even started closing windows every time Ryan came up behind him. Only Chrome – never Final Cut or anything work-related, just ... he'd close his browser, every time. The weirdest bit was that Ryan never saw him hit a key shortcut, it was more like the window just disappeared.

That wasn't even mentioning the weird phone calls he'd walked in on a couple of times, where it had sounded like Shane was speaking German. Or something. He never could quite catch it. He'd asked about that – Shane had given him ... had Shane even answered the question? Ryan couldn't remember.

He'd also found a weird candle by Shane's computer, with some sort of rune etched into it. He'd asked about that one too, and Shane had looked at him funny: it was a gift from a fan, he'd said, didn't Ryan remember opening that box of fan mail? ... Ryan did. Vaguely. Sort of.

And then there was the moment on Wednesday where Andrew had asked Shane for a hand moving a desk, and Shane had ... basically moved it by himself, even with several computers and plenty of work shit on it. And ... nobody else had found it odd, as far as Ryan could tell.

 _Strangest of all_ , he'd _stopped eating popcorn._ He'd been over for their regular movie night, Ryan had offered him popcorn – with an addictively good habañero seasoning that they both adored – and Shane had _turned it down_.

Something was fucking _fishy_ , and Ryan was going to get to the bottom of it. He spent his Thursday night curled up on his couch with his laptop, buried deep in about three dozen tabs in his Tor browser, an honest-to-god pen-and-paper notebook by his side (so he could burn the notes later), and at 3:13 in the morning he put the pad and laptop down, rubbed his eyes, and stared at his reflection in the darkened window across from him.

He was pretty sure Shane was being possessed by a demon.

Welp.

* * *

They had a shoot Friday night. An old abandoned apartment building, supposedly haunted to the gills. Even Ryan was skeptical, which was saying something, but for once in his life Shane seemed to be _looking forward_ to the trip. It wasn't far, only a couple hours' drive from HQ, so they put in a full day and then drove out. (Shane had turned down Chipotle on the way out; Ryan had watched him suspiciously while eating his own burrito, but TJ and Devin didn't find any of this odd in the slightest.)

In hindsight, Ryan should have twigged that something was weird about this, too. Buzzfeed had cleared a full day of office work and _then_ a shoot?  That wasn't standard.  But hey! It would work just fine for his purposes.

They had TJ and Devin with them until 9.00 pm; after that, Shane and Ryan would stay for their lock-in sections, then decide whether they wanted to stay the night (the building was technically still habitable, on par with their night at Waverly Hills, but ... Ryan really wasn't keen on the idea, not least because Shane seemed _over the moon_ about it).

Ryan was planning to spring his trap about five minutes after TJ and Devin left. Enough time for them to be out of earshot, not so far that they couldn't swoop back in and rescue him.

(What the fuck was he thinking?)

Ryan could not stop checking his watch all night. He only had to wait two hours. Only two hours. A hundred and twenty minutes. Not long.

The box of salt felt like it was burning a hole in his backpack.

Shane was having way too much fun as usual, mocking everything. He was probably the cheeriest Ryan had seen him all week, his face positively _lit up_ with glee. (Those contacts were _not the right colour._ ) They had no trouble at all getting into any of the parts of the building, even the parts that the owners had said they'd never get open. (Ryan hadn't been able to move that one door at all; Shane opened it like it had been oiled not thirty seconds before.)

Finally, TJ and Devin left, and Ryan resisted the urge to tap his foot with impatience until he'd counted the five minutes he'd promised himself. He left Shane setting up a light grid in one abandoned suite, ducked into the hallway just outside, silently unzipped his backpack, and took out the box of salt. He popped it open, and carefully – but quickly! – poured a circle that stretched all the way across the hallway between the door to the apartment Shane was in, and the apartment on the opposite side of the hall. Once he'd finished, he put the salt away and went into the other apartment, where he placed the bag on the ground just inside the door – and pulled out his water pistol, freshly blessed only the night before.

He stood just inside the doorway of the empty apartment, looking across the hall into the suite Shane was still in. He took a couple slow breaths before stepping further into the apartment, just out of the sightline of the door, and he held the water gun at his side.

Goddamn, but he hoped he was wrong. Maybe he _was_ losing it. Maybe the nightmares were just getting to him.

He swallowed, took a deep breath, and called out in the most excited voice he could muster, "Dude! You gotta see this room!"

A heartbeat. Two heartbeats. He could hear Shane's footsteps from the other room, then— they stopped. "Huh," a quiet voice said, "I can't... move."

Ryan felt like his heart had dropped into his stomach, and he broke out into a cold sweat. _Fuck_. He stepped forward gingerly, coming into the doorway. Sure enough, Shane was standing in the salt circle, looking at the floor. He looked confused.

Shane looked up at Ryan as he moved into view. "...Did you set up this trap, Ryan?" He tried to step forward – one step, one and a half—and his movement was arrested, his foot coming back down to the ground just inside the circle. He broke into a half-smile, raising an eyebrow. "I'm impressed!"

As Ryan watched, it looked like something was changing in Shane's hair. Finally, the tiniest tip of— _of a fucking horn poked up out of his best friend's head._ Ryan lost it, bringing the water gun up to bear on Shane. " _What have you done with Shane, you demon?!"_ he yelled.

Shane didn't respond, only blinked in surprise.

Ryan's brain suddenly decided to jump onto an entirely different track, and he felt a surge of excitement which made him lower the pistol slightly. "Oh my God I finally have definitive proof of the supernatural!" he blurted, eyes widening. "I can't wait to show—" Oh wait. He narrowed his eyes again, bringing the gun back up, glaring at the... _thing..._ in the salt circle. He tried his best to sound intimidating. (To be honest, he was using the Goldsworth voice, but no one needed to know that.) "I _can't wait_ to show Shane."

Shane – who now very definitely had two horns and an _honest-to-God pair of wings poking out of his brown flannel, holy fucking shit –_ just cocked the other eyebrow, raised a hand (which Ryan jerked the water pistol to point to, instinctively), and waved. "I _am_ Shane," it said.

" _Nope!_ " Ryan shouted, taking a step closer to the doorway, pointing the water pistol right at the thing's chest again. "You're just the _creep_ possessing him!!"

Shane flinched back, his eyebrows flying up in shock and his mouth dropping open. Ryan's resolve stuttered – he hated seeing Shane offended or hurt or sad, and he especially hated it when he himself took the teasing too far and was the cause – but _no_ , this was a _demon_ , he had to save his friend, this was not the time to be tricked by silly demon shenanigans.

But then Shane's face fell, his brow furrowing and the corners of his mouth turning down. And, in what might have been the quietest, most hurt-sounding voice Ryan had ever heard come out of his best friend's mouth, Shane said, "...I'm not a creep."


End file.
